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97 Jurek Kolarski appalled by what he saw that he was determined to help someone. Of course he had to be very careful in his choice. He decided that I was to be trusted. Once, after the execution of my colleagues, I had to see my mother, to pass on this information and to discuss the plans for my possible escape. So Bock decided to go and see my mother. The meeting was arranged to take place in the apartment of my relatives above the Bank Polski in Krakow. I explained to him in detail how he was to get there, and he went with our letters tucked into his socks, inside his high boots. My mother was naturally horrified when she opened the door and saw an 55-man standing there, but she quickly calmed down when he introduced himself by saying, "I am Janka." After the war, he was interned in the American sector of occupied Germany. When I heard he was there, I got in touch with friends who were in the American sector, and eventually he was freed. Richard Bock was later made an honorary member of the Political Prisoners Association in Europe. After the war, Kocyan was a member of the Polish First Armored Division, which served as part of the Allied forces of occupation. In 1947, he settled in England, where he worked as a mechanical engineer. He kept in contact with Richard Bock after the war. JUREK KOLARSKI I was a young boy, only sixteen years old, at the time the Germans came into our village. They seemed to do the same thing everywhere in the vicinity-terrorize all the civilian inhabitants, Jews and Poles. I remember that day quite vividly. It was September 1939. A German motorized unit came into town, shooting wildly at the people like we were animals. Many people of all ages, Jews and Poles, were wounded or killed. I ran into the cellar of a neighbor's house. I never remember being so scared. I heard a lot of shouting and screaming as the Germans herded the people into a nearby barn. When things got quiet, I left the cellar and saw with my own eyes as the Germans burned a large barn with forty or fifty people inside it. Poles and Jews died together there. 98 Out of the Inferno I was so horrified that I ran as fast as I could. As I left the village, I met a Jewish boy whom I knew. He was about my own age. He was walking casually along the road. I asked him if he knew what was going on in the village. He shook his head, so I told him. With tears streaming down our faces, both of us were lucky to reach some nearby woods for the night. We were frightened, hungry, and tired. This Jewish lad and myself, who had never been close before the war because our parents frowned on it, now became friends. How ironic! As we were to learn later, both his parents and mine were killed that very day in the same barn. He looked very Jewish and therefore could not leave the woods. The Germans would have killed him. It was I who went out to get food and water for us from some peasants who lived on the edge of the woods. I did not tell them that a Jewish boy was in the woods with me because it would have endangered these people if the Germans found out. It was simply better that they knew nothing about my Jewish friend. I learned later that this peasant family were shot for hiding Jews in their barn. I don't remember exactly when it was-a short time after the Polish army surrendered to the Germans in October 1939-thatI made contact with a small group that had organized not far from the village as a resistance force. Most of the members were young men like me. A few former noncommissioned officers of the Polish army ran the unit. I never really knew who was in charge because orders came from different sergeants at various times. The group was high-spirited and passionate in its desire to kill as many Germans as possible. Only after I made sure that my Jewish friend would be welcome in the unit did he reveal himself. He ended up one of the best fighters in the unit, killing ten or twenty Germans with a rifle...

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